			Home About us Contact

Heightened Attention (heightened + attention)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Medical Sciences	50%
Humanities and Social Sciences	50%

Selected Abstracts

Neurophysiological and genetic distinctions between pure and comorbid anxiety disorders,

DEPRESSION AND ANXIETY, Issue 5 2008
Mary-Anne Enoch M.D.
Abstract Anxiety disorders are often comorbid with major depression (MD) and alcohol use disorders (AUD). Two common functional polymorphisms in catechol-O-methyltransferase (COMT Val158Met) and brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF Val66Met) genes have been implicated in the neurobiology of anxiety and depression. We hypothesized that attentional response and working memory (auditory P300 event-related potential and Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale, Revised digit symbol scores) as well as genetic vulnerability would differ between pure anxiety disorders and comorbid anxiety. Our study sample comprised 249 community-ascertained men and women with lifetime DSM-III-R diagnoses. We analyzed groups of participants with pure anxiety disorders, pure MD, pure AUD, comorbid anxiety, and no psychiatric disorder. Participants were well at the time of testing; state anxiety and depressed mood measures were at most only mildly elevated. Individuals with pure anxiety disorders had elevated P300 amplitudes (P=0.0004) and higher digit symbol scores (P<0.0001) compared with all the other groups. Individuals with comorbid anxiety had the greatest proportion of COMT Met158 and BDNF Met66 alleles (P=0.009) as well as higher harm avoidance-neuroticism (P<0.0005) than all other groups. Our results suggest that there may be two vulnerability factors for anxiety disorders with differing genetic susceptibility: (a) heightened attention and better working memory with mildly elevated anxiety-neuroticism, a constellation that may be protective against other psychopathology; and (b) poorer attention and working memory with greater anxiety-neuroticism, a constellation that may also increase vulnerability to AUD and MD. This refinement of the anxiety phenotype may have implications for therapeutic interventions. Depression and Anxiety 0:1,10, 2007. Published 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]

The Promise of Sonic Translation: Performing the Festive Sacred in Morocco

AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGIST, Issue 4 2008
DEBORAH A. KAPCHAN
ABSTRACT, How do international music festivals produce experiences of the sacred in multifaith audiences? What is their part in creating transnational communities of affect? In this article, I theorize what I call "the promise of sonic translation": the trust in the ultimate translatability of aural (as opposed to textual) codes. This promise, I assert, produces the "festive sacred," a configuration of aesthetic and embodied practices associated with festivity wherein people of different religions and nations create and cohabit an experience of the sacred through heightened attention to auditory and sense-based modes of devotion conceived as "universal." The festive sacred is a transnational (thus mobile) phenomenon inextricable from the enterprise of sacred tourism. Such festive forms not only produce a Turnerian communitas but also create new transnational categories that mediate religious sentiment and reenchant the world. [source]

Rural Hospital Patient Safety Systems Implementation in Two States

THE JOURNAL OF RURAL HEALTH, Issue 3 2007
Daniel R. Longo ScD
ABSTRACT:,Context and Purpose:With heightened attention to medical errors and patient safety, we surveyed Utah and Missouri hospitals to assess the "state of the art" in patient safety systems and identify changes over time. This study examines differences between urban and rural hospitals.Methods:Survey of all acute care hospitals in Utah and Missouri at 2 points in time (2002 and 2004). Factor analysis was used to develop 7 latent variables to summarize the data, comparing rural and urban hospitals at each point in time and on change between the 2 survey times.Findings:On 3 of the 7 latent variables, there was a statistically significant difference between rural and urban hospitals at the first survey, with rural hospitals indicating lower levels of implementation. The differences remained present on 2 of those latent variables at the second survey. In both cases, 1 of those variables was computerized physician order entry (CPOE) systems. Rural hospitals reported more improvement in systems implementation between the 2 survey times, with the difference statistically significant on 1 of the 7 latent variables; the greatest improvement was in implementation of "root cause analysis."Conclusions:Adoption of patient safety systems overall is low. Although rates of adoption among rural versus urban hospitals appear lower, most differences are not statistically significant; the gap between rural and urban hospitals relative to quality measures is narrowing. Change in rural and urban hospitals is in the right direction, with the rate of change higher in rural hospitals for many systems. [source]

Re-encountering resistance: Plantation activism and smallholder production in Thailand and Sarawak, Malaysia

ASIA PACIFIC VIEWPOINT, Issue 3 2004
Keith BarneyArticle first published online: 6 DEC 200
Abstract:,The emergence of social and environmental movements against plantation forestry in Southeast Asia positions rural development against local displacement and environmental degradation. Multi-scaled NGO networks have been active in promoting the notion that rural people in Southeast Asia uniformly oppose plantation development. There are potential pitfalls in this heightened attention to resistance however, as it has often lapsed into essentialist notions of timeless indigenous agricultural practices, and unproblematic local allegiances to common property and conservation. An exclusive emphasis on resistance also offers little understanding of widespread smallholder participation in plantation production across the region. A useful method of approaching the complexity of local responses to plantation development is through the history of legal and informal resource tenure, within an analysis of rural political-economic restructuring. Drawing on research in Thailand and Sarawak, I suggest that a more nuanced appreciation of both the structural constraints and deployments of agency which characterise the enrolment of rural people into plantation commodity networks, opens up new spaces for analysis and political action, which supports a geographically embedded view of relations of power, rural livelihoods and environmental politics. [source]